


Butterfly Kisses

by TeaRoses



Category: Silent Hill
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 02:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/pseuds/TeaRoses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry says good night to his second daughter.  Originally written for "schmoop bingo."  (Yes I wrote schmoop for Silent Hill, sort of at least, all it contains is vague references to people being dead...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Butterfly Kisses

Harry sat at his daughter's bedside, reading one of her favorite fairy tales. It had been one of the first Cheryl's favorites too, though Harry was never sure if that was only a coincidence or not. 

"In the morning the soldier told the king the truth about the twelve dancing princesses. And though the soldier was not a young man, the king gave him his eldest daughter's hand in marriage. And he became the king's heir."

"Did the princess want to marry the soldier?" Cheryl asked. "Or did she want to keep dancing?"

Harry gave a little laugh. His daughter would be the one to ask that. "Maybe the soldier was a good dancer too," he said. "And a handsome old guy."

"Maybe," she said, distrust in her voice.

Harry leaned over and kissed his daughter on the forehead. Then he brushed his eyelashes over her cheek.

"What was that, daddy?"

"A butterfly kiss," Harry replied. Suddenly he realized he had never given her one, not this Cheryl. It had been a night-time routine with the first Cheryl, back when she was little and her mother was alive, but he had been afraid to recreate it. Maybe it was seeing the butterflies in Alessa's room in Silent Hill that had made him reluctant. Yet he could remember it so well, Cheryl laughing and hugging them, calling out "More butterflies!" in her childish voice.

"A butterfly doesn't have a mouth!" said this Cheryl now, laughing.

"Of course it has a mouth," he said. "How else does it sip nectar from all the flowers?"

"But it's a little teensy mouth!" she insisted.

"A butterfly kiss isn't supposed to be from a butterfly's mouth. The eyelashes are like a wing brushing over you."

"You can't have a butterfly in your eye," said Cheryl reasonably.

"No, I suppose you can't," he said. 

It made him a little sad that this Cheryl didn't like butterfly kisses. But he had already warned himself that she was her own person and he would have to raise her that way. If he could get away with it, he planned never to tell her that he had ever had another daughter, or about her own birth. He tried to love her as she was, and that had to be enough.

"Good night, now, sweetie," he said finally. She looked ready to beg for another story, but he slipped out the room before she could start.

Half an hour later he heard the sound of his own bedroom door opening, and Cheryl's small footsteps on the carpet. He opened his eyes to see her standing next to his bed.

"Did you have a bad dream?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No, but I have a story for you, daddy."

"What kind of story?" he asked.

"About a beautiful lady. She was so beautiful, but her nasty sisters made her clean the fireplace!"

Harry laughed gently. "I think I've heard this story before," he said. "Did she go to a ball?"

"Yes, the fairy godmother sent her to the ball and do you know what she did?" Cheryl asked.

"Why don't you tell me," he said.

"She danced and danced and danced until her shoes wore out! And the fairy godmother said "Where are your shoes?" and she said, "I danced too much." So the fairy godmother turned her into a princess. And then her father was a king."

"Oh really?" asked Harry. "This story is a little different."

"And then do you know what?"

"What?"

"She gave her father butterfly kisses!" Cheryl leaned in and brushed her eyelashes over Harry's cheek.

Harry gathered her up in his arms and hugged her tightly. "I love you, little one," he said.

"Am I your princess, daddy?" she asked.

"Yes," Harry replied. "Always."


End file.
